The Waiting Game

Today was total déjà vu for many of us, I’m sure. 

In my opinion, today was a completely heightened version of the original notification day. I could easily give myself stomach butterflies just thinking about the appeals notification. This was probably more suspenseful than April 8th ever was. No, this is more suspenseful than the first day ever was. Mainly because, if I didn’t get in, this was surely the end of the road. The end of the journey…

All this past week, I’d have to admit, I’ve been a bit down, and NCSSM was surely one of the contributing factors. (My brother also goes to school in Boston, so this previous Monday was a huge scare for our family. He’s completely safe now, thankfully.) But even though I was upset, I really hadn’t felt defeated because of the appeals. People were comforting me as if it was all over, because being a nonfinalist is pretty binding. Most who are defferred by colleges for early decision/action usually don’t have much hope into getting in later. 

Even though I was feeling defeated, I was still thinking so much about still going to the school. I couldn’t quite imagine seeing myself in the 2015 class, but at the same time, I still can’t NOT imagine seeing myself there. 

My decision-opening story isn’t as exciting as some of the stories you’ve read around the internet before, but the stakes felt high. They were released at 5:00pm this time around, unlike the 4:00pm time of the initial results. So today, I had to wait around for 45 minutes just desperately trying to keep my mind on something else. 

There I lay in my bed, iPod in hand, trying to pass the time, when I realized the time had turned to 4:58. Without a thought, I logged into the status page, expecting my April 7th “nonfinalist” decision to be there. I wanted to wait until 5:00 to refresh the page, because there was no way I could type my complete email and password correctly on that tiny keyboard under the nervousness I’d soon get. 

I was met with something different. 

Date,                    Residential Program          NCSSM Online  

April 16,2013              Wait List                               –

I literally fell out of my bed. This was not what I was expecting to see, especially a minute earlier. Even once I got over the time difference, I still was not expecting it. According to an admissions office meeting pdf, there were 400 appeals for the class of 2014, and they accepted 61 to the wait list.

 I had been talking to myself (a lot, frankly) this past week; talking myself out of NCSSM in the case that my appeal was rejected. And now that I’ve gotten the chance to have dinner and clam myself down a bit, I realize this still isn’t over. This is definitely good news concerning my admission, but it seems that the waiting game still continues on.